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posted by janrinok on Saturday December 24 2016, @07:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the walls-have-ears dept.

Everything you do, and everything that happens -- from the location of a water cooler down to serious violations of the law -- is confidential upon pain of termination and the risk of ruinous litigation. You are forbidden to speak to the government, attorneys or the press about wrongdoings at the Company. You are forbidden to speak to your spouse, or your friends, about whether you think your boss could do a better job.

These are only a few of the eye-catching elements in Google's confidentiality policies, according to a lawsuit brought forward by one of the 65,000 "Googlers". The plaintiff has registered his complaint under a "John Doe" identity, as Brian Katz, Google's Director of Global Investigations, Intelligence & Protective Services falsely informed the rest of the Googlers that plaintiff had been terminated for leaking certain information to the press. This was not the case, and Katz knew this, according to the plaintiff: he fears going public will ruin his reputation in the tech industry.

Earlier this year, a Nest employee was fired because he posted comments about Nest's CEO Tony Fadell on Facebook. The reason given for termination was that these posts breached Google's Data Classification guidelines.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:59PM

    by Bot (3902) on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:59PM (#445651) Journal

    Just wonder what would happen if Google were not evil(tm).

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:08PM

    by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:08PM (#445653) Journal

    Google may not be evil, but HR, legal, and most "coporate" behaviours are interchangeable, getting "better" at their jobs the more moneybthe company has.
    Google has billions, so these behaviours have lots of support (more lawyers to write the contracts, more money to go to couprt to fight employees)
    I don't think this is Google's fault, as much as "corporate America normal" coming to Google.
    I doubt *any* sufficiently large company can prevent this - "everyone does it" "your employees will try and take money from you"
    This sort of paranoia is "normal", alas.

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:25PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:25PM (#445667)

      Kinda like how you need a gun for self-protection. It's a seductive idea that breeds in paranoia.

      Imagine all those $people coming to take your money, what are you going to do? Duh guns.

      Duh mandatory arbitration.
      Duh confidentiality agreement.

      To fend off the bastards coming to kill you. Makes perfect sense.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @01:54AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @01:54AM (#445703)

        First they discredit you.
        Then they disarm you.
        Then they demonize you.
        Then they come to euthanize you.

        And then there is nobody left to stop their advance. (Well, except the people who could have stopped it but didn't because it was advantageous to them or would have compromised their sources, but had no moral integrity to speak of which could be compromised by 'not listening to their heart.')

        Yay for humanity.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @10:28PM (#445668)

      On top of that the original policies were probably 'normal' and actually probably fairly reasonable.

      However, get an asshat with a chip on their shoulder wanting to 'DO SOMETHING' or building an empire you have a recipe for douchbagary of the scale where Andy Kaufman would stop and go 'damn dude'.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 25 2016, @01:39AM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday December 25 2016, @01:39AM (#445700) Homepage

      Even if a corporation is evil, it's often cheaper to settle than it is to fight. It probably happens a lot more than you realize, but we don't hear about it because of silence being a term of the settlement.

      Even settling involves lawyering up, and that costs money a lot of little guys don't have.

  • (Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday December 25 2016, @12:29AM

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Sunday December 25 2016, @12:29AM (#445695)

    "Don't be evil" was the corporate motto of Google. Alphabet however has no such motto. Hence, problem solved.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @03:02AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25 2016, @03:02AM (#445718)

      "Don't be evil" was the corporate motto of Google. Alphabet however has no such motto. Hence, problem solved.

      Not quite. The progression (motto history pseudo code) is...

      Google=Some Dumb College Kids -> Google=Don't be evil -> Apple=Pepsi -> Google=Novell -> Google!=Pepsi??!?? -> Google=Madison Avenue -> Google=Satan -> Alphabet=Google and its baggage, but too smart to "motto" about anything. Unless it's the unspoken, "Fuck you, dumb college kids!"